


Part Of Your World

by Velvedere



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Jotun!Loki, Jotunheim, M/M, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 18:41:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1236949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velvedere/pseuds/Velvedere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jotun-born Loki visits an old witch to change himself into an Asgardian.</p><p>Lovingly ripped off/inspired by another Disney movie. (Guess which one.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Part Of Your World

Loki took special care in scaling the rocks. The canyon wall was sheer, and even coated in ice the narrow ledges where his hands and feet could gain purchase were only barely secure. Several times he slipped, nearly fell, gripping the frozen rock face while he listened to dislodged stones fall and smash into the canyon floor far below.

Wind funneled by the jagged tear in the landscape pulled at his hair and clothes, doing nothing to help.

Finally, he made it to the bottom.

The canyon was dark, filled with a dense mist that made sounds hollow and each new rock formation seem an enemy or crouching wild beast, ready to attack.

His steps remained careful, a soft and lonely sound, as he approached the mouth of the cave.

No light burned within. There was only lifeless black, cold and forbidding even among the forgotten wastes of Jotunheim.

“There’s no need to hide, child,” issued a rasping voice from within. “Your presence is already known to us.”

Loki stood from behind a boulder where he had begun to crouch, intent on waiting and watching to see what movement issued from the cave’s entrance. He tucked a loose strand of dark hair behind his ear, and took a breath.

“You know me?” he answered, stilling himself to keep his voice from wavering.

“Loki,” said the voice. “Son of Laufey. Prince of this realm. Such a distinguished guest.”

“Then you know why I am here?”

“We know. But we would hear it from your own tongue.” The voice laughed as a wind rose briefly through the canyon’s passage. “Come in. Come in, little prince. We will do you no harm.”

His steps remained wary, but Loki approached. He ducked his head to fit into the cave’s swallowing darkness. The wind did not penetrate beyond the entrance, but the cave’s chill struck all the deeper. Loki’s bare feet on the moss and lichen-covered rocks of the cave floor took note of the cold without being overly affected by it. Like his kin, most of his deep blue skin lay exposed even to the snow and ice.

He crept to the back of the cave, where only the dimmest glow of worms along the craggy ceiling illuminated the hunched figure there.

She was an old crone. Bone-thin, and old as ice. Her joints snapped and cracked when she moved, as though she was made of it. Her teeth were jagged icebergs on a dark sea when she smiled, her hair as fine as frost trails.

Her eyes glowed the blue of a warmless sunrise as she turned upon him, and beckoned him closer with a frigid hand.

“Come closer, child. We do not often have visitors.” She smiled. “You honor us with your presence.”

“How is it you know of me?” Loki formed a dagger in the palm of his closed hand, tucked just behind his hip, for reassurance.

“We know a great many things.” The crone gestured around her. Loki saw no one else, save for the glow worms. “But what is it you have come to know?”

“You already know what I will say. Why should I speak it?”

“Because we enjoy the sound of your voice.”

The crone laughed, a sound like sliding glaciers. Loki tightened his jaw and kept his face like stone, not taking his eyes from her. He only gripped the handle of his summoned dagger to stay his temper.

“I want to leave this realm,” he said. “I was told you could help me.”

“Leave?” the crone echoed. “Why would our dear young prince want to leave? Oh...” She gestured her hand. Though she did not move otherwise, Loki felt a ghost of the sensation along his spine. “There’s a fire that burns here. A fire of hate. We see a great deal of anger.”

She tilted her head. Thin hair floated like cobwebs.

“Is our king not so kind?”

“Nevermind that.” Loki all but spat the words, short and clipped. He refused to submit to thoughts of his father, despite the memory of heated words spoken too rashly fresh in his mind. Despite the searing brand of remorse. Of betrayal.

“Can you help me, or not?”

“Mmm. Another fire burns here. One of deeper flame.” The old crone shifted. She stood, though not fully unbent from her crouch, and hobbled to a small pool of water in the cave floor, long since frozen. “What is this?”

Loki did not answer. He took a breath instead, held it, and watched as the crone moved her hand over the icy mirror.

An image appeared within. First of a barren landscape, pristine and white with untouched snow. Then a group of riders tore through it, loud and without restraint. A black stain on the land in comparison. Their horses trampled fragile icicle formations and left long trails behind them as they trespassed deep beyond their borders.

A shape followed them. A hunter in furs and fine leathers. He moved unseen and remained hidden in the drifts until the intruders made camp. They melted the ice with their fires and slept beneath the open sky.

The hunter approached. He stood over one of them with his summoned spear of ice, ready to plunge it into their leader’s throat.

And...he paused.

Hesitated.

He looked closer, kneeling to see the stranger’s face in the dimming glow of the fire.

Not an ugly and tyrannical face, but...quite beautiful. With an honest and open expression even as his brow furrowed in sleep, as he murmured the nothings of dreams.

Loki closed his eyes, and turned his face quickly away.

“Ah, we see,” hissed the crone, with no small amount of delight. “Love. A far more painful and destructive flame than hate could ever envy.”

“Answer my question,” Loki demanded when he looked to her again. He met her eyes, unafraid.

The crone grinned.

“We can help you,” she said. “If this is what you truly want.”

“It is.” Loki had given a good deal of thought to it – though really none at all, as there was no questioning a desire his heart craved so completely. There was nothing for him in Jotunheim. Nothing he wanted to cling to.

“What are you willing to give for it, little prince?”

There, Loki hesitated again, and did not answer right away.

Then, he whispered.

“What is your price?”

The crone’s fingers curled, as did her smile. She passed her hand over the mirror again and the images faded: the last being a lingering likeness of the Asgardian’s face.

“Your magic,” she said.

Loki’s heart stilled. He did not let as much show on his face, but he could not help the flicker of doubt that struck behind his eyes. A moment’s hesitation upon which the crone seized.

“To grasp what you want, you must leave this realm behind,” she said. “I can make you Aesir, but it will cost your magic. Your talent. You will no longer be a prince, or Jotun.”

“I care nothing for this realm.” Loki shook his head. “Let it freeze in the bowels of its own atrophy.”

“And your love?”

“I will...agree to your terms.” Loki eased his hand. The dagger faded behind his back. He relinquished its presence with a sigh. “I do not need magic to make my way in the world.”

“So be it.” The crone squatted beside her mirror again. She moved her hand across its surface, stirring with one finger a deep blue light that swelled from the ice. “This magic is in our power, but there are conditions.”

“Name them.”

“The first, you will be stripped of all power. That power will belong to us. The second, this spell will last only a short while.”

“How long?”

“Three days.”

“Three days?” Loki wrinkled his nose. “Is that all?”

The crone nodded her ancient head.

“Surely the great Angrboda can manage more than that? Or is the famed power of the Witch of the Iron Wood not as all-encompassing as the stories say—?”

The crone wrenched her hand into a fist. A sudden lurch deep inside Loki’s body made him fall to his knees, his throat tight, his bones wracked with pain.

“Do not try your tricks on us, little prince,” the crone hissed, no longer jovial. Her blue eyes fanned into a red flame that seared, spit ash from her mouth. “Three days is what you shall have. In that time, you must earn your love’s acceptance as you are. If you succeed, you shall remain Aesir, and powerless. If you fail, the blood of Jotunheim will fill your veins once again. And you...”

The crone gestured again. Loki cried out as his body shook, torn from the inside. He threw his arms over his head as though it would shield him.

“You will be our servant.”

Loki expected a ritual. Some form of conjuring with runes and ingredients to summon the magic and congeal it into solid, raw power. But Angrboda only turned her hand. She uncurled long, gnarled fingers cracked with ice and gestured, speaking a single word of power that reached into the depths of Loki’s being.

He could feel it change him.

He watched, a haze of pain making it seem very far away. The dark shade of his skin bled away into Aesir pale. The marks embedded on his body, traced lines of Jotun heritage, smoothed and faded. He felt warmth stir in his heart and spread to the furthest reaches of his body, growing hotter and hotter, instilling him with heat, until he was certain he would die.

The world grew dark. The glow worms were no longer sufficient light.

Through it all, the crone laughed.

And Loki screamed.

When it was done, he fell to the frozen cave floor, shaking and gasping for breath. At once the deep cold of the rocks bit into his skin. It numbed his fingertips, and reached into his newly warmed body, making his every muscle seize and shiver.

The crone settled back into the same hunch in which he had found her, sparing him not a second glance. She only closed her hand around an orb of light settled into her palm, freezing it into a crystal.

“You had better go now, Asgardian,” she hissed. “Before you freeze to death.”

Loki pushed himself to his feet. Turning, he ran, staggering for the mouth of the cave as he pulled his meager garments in more tightly around him, for what little good it did.

The crone’s laughter chased his every step.


End file.
